SYLKEN

PiNG

Sylken Music (2003)

review by Bill Binkelman

Canadian ambient trio Sylken accomplished two amazing things on their album, PiNG. One represents the technical side of the issue, i.e. pulling off a live recording of ambient music (recorded on two separate dates at Toronto's famed THE AMBIENT PiNG) in such a way that the engineering and mix is as good as many studio recordings. In a non-technical vein, there is the flat-out artistic brilliance of their music. The three musicians (leader Eric Hopper on synths and guitar loops, Wally Jericho on trumpet, bass and percussion, and Steve Sauvé on synths, loops and treatments) play as if they're one person (albeit a person with six hands!), melding their distinct talents into a cohesive entity that yields mesmerizing results. Listening to the three cuts on PiNG with headphones (as I have done exclusively with this CD) will propel the listener on all sorts of ambient and outer space journeys, both into warm and friendly skies as well as darker slightly forbidding territory.

There is absolutely no easy way to describe this music in linear terms, since the shortest track is sixteen minutes long! The closing number, "NGC 720" (named for a galactic cluster located about 80 million light years from Earth) stretches out over almost thirty-four minutes(!) and traverses more than a few soundscapes, from disturbing and slightly dissonant loops and guitar distortions to ambiguous and haunting trumpet and synth tone poems to the drama of the cosmic soaring flights of neo-Berlinesque triumph near the tracks conclusion. "Here, Then Gone," which opens the album, is my favorite number, although using the term "favorite" is relative as I enjoy the whole CD. After a daring start amidst a hazy miasma of ambient noise culminating in a Demby-like crescendo, the track eventually settles into a beautiful combination of spacemusic and floating ambient textures, set amidst twinkling synths, deep space washes, echoing guitar-loops, and Jericho's superb "space-jazz" trumpet playing. There is a later passage where things become a bit frenetic with flashes of searing guitar loops, what sounds like dog yelps (!) and weird alien noise effects, but it all fits in perfectly with the flow of the track at that point. "This Sonorous Apparition" is the darkest of the tracks on the CD. It too evolves through several stages through its sixteen minutes, although this cut contains the most dissonance of all three. And while I'm no fan of that particular form of music, Sylken manage to make it not just palatable but fascinating!

Comparisons will be hard to come up with as Sylken are true originals, possessed of a vision of ambient music as non-restrictive (yet never too avant garde or experimental) as any out there. During one playing of PiNG, I found myself remembering Pink Floyd's UmmaGumma and Soft Machine's Third, two of what I consider the finest recordings of all time (for those who don't know, Soft Machine were considered a pioneering progressive fusion band back in the late '60s and early '70s, spearheaded by Robert Wyatt and Hugh Hopper; Third was judged by many critics to be their best work). The comparisons to these two groups are for different reasons. Pink Floyd's UmmaGumma (the live recording part) is a landmark in "spacerock" and many ambient artists cite it as an major influence. Soft Machine's Third showed just how seamlessly a fusion group could play together and produce music that was exciting, brave, and untraditional, yet not chase away souls who needed something "safe."

My strong recommendation of PiNG does carry two "conditions," though. One is that you will miss the party if you play this CD as background music. Oh sure, you'll "like" it, but you won't hear even one-third of what I'm talkin' 'bout, Willis! So, turn off the lights, and either don headphones or crank up your speakers (and get rid of all distractions). The other caveat is that you must listen to each track all the way through. You don't necessarily have to always listen to the whole CD, but stopping in the middle of a track will feel insubstantial - trust me, I did it a few times before I learned my lesson. I urge you to devote some time to this recording. It deserves it and so do you. Extra kudos to Eric Hopper who produced and mixed this tremendous achievement in a live music recording. Highly recommended!